Common Ground Wednesday--Rev. Mark Randle from TCPC

  The purpose of Common Ground Wednesdays is to highlight the fraternal bond we share as Catholics and evangelicals, and the mutual blessings we have to share with each other, while also being honest--and charitable--about our legitimate differences. As Blessed John Paul II wrote in his encyclical Ut Unum Sint (That They May be One), "Dialogue is not simply an exchange of ideas. In some way it is always an exchange of gifts."

  Today's guest is Rev. Mark Randle, uber-Tennessee fan and Associate Pastor at Tates Creek Presbyterian Church in Lexington. Tates Creek Prebsyterian (or TCPC), is part of the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA), a denomination formed from the merger of several others a few decades ago. The PCA adheres to the Reformed faith, a major branch of Western Protestant Christianity that follows the theological tradition and forms of Christian practice of John Calvin and other Reformation-era theologians.

  Mark and I have been friends for about 10 years, when our then five-year-old daughters played on the same soccer team, when I was still a Methodist pastor and he was on staff with Campus Crusade for Christ. I've said this before, but he was one of my relatively few Protestant ministry friends who wasn't "weirded out" and didn't treat me any differently when I told him I was becoming Catholic. And all this goodness from a Tennessee fan? Inconceivable!

   We'll be talking today about...

• Politics and Christianity--how should they meet?
• The challenge of preaching about financial giving
• Who got the better coaching hire, UK w/ Mark Stoops or Tennessee w/ Butch Jones
• Rounds of dueling Dial-a-Catechism  (Catholics use the Catechism of the Catholic Church and TCPC uses the Westminster Catechism)